Publish at June 19 2015 Updated October 01 2025
Everything we do leaves traces by which we can be identified and located in a multitude of ways. The intention behind a location can be good or bad, ephemeral or permanently recorded, well-protected or easily misappropriated, voluntary or imposed.
In education and research, being able to locate observations and associate them with images, videos or comments makes contributions to a group easier and enables data to be exploited on a large scale.
The idea of associating "just-in-time" training with authorized locations, devices or people is gradually gaining ground in professional training, and is becoming possible thanks to geolocation.
The potential of geolocation for drone observations is only just beginning to be exploited.
The subject is open-ended, and will continue to evolve until such time as reasonable principles are laid down in law. Remember that freedom of movement and the right to privacy are human rights (articles 12 and 13).
In the meantime, here's what you need to know:
Hundreds of applications and most quality commercial sites locate us before we've even started reading their pages. How do they do it? Using our IP address and/or the HTML 5 geolocation API.
This API uses either the IP address and a database, or the GPS data on mobile devices, which is much more accurate; to this can be added information from the device's gyrometer (orientation) and accelerometer...
Some geolocation sites :
Google Map and its derivatives allow you to locate yourself and plot routes. Several services integrate these properties into applications for runners, cyclists, hikers, travelers, geocachers and even collectors.
Itineraries
Indoor" means location defined by a perimeter of beacons, most often wi-fi, but not exclusively. Various frequencies can be used to calculate position, and even sound waves. The principles remain the same, whether by triangulation, interference or proximity detection. In all cases, you are no longer dependent on an external system, and positioning can be very precise.
They are used on campuses, in museums, shops and certain public places. Their advantage is that they enable specific interaction with the phone user: notifications, information, instructions, the possibilities are numerous. We can also map the movements of hundreds of users and find out what is actually happening, in real time or over specific periods, with a large number of people. Surveillance drift with this kind of system coupled with a nominal database can quickly reach excesses.
This sector is booming; many companies are working on wi-fi-based systems to pinpoint the exact location of anyone who connects to the network via wi-fi...
Some services
Passive localization services (using RFID chips and sensors) for goods , or active localization (usually using cellular transmitters and GPS) for cars or trucks, are proliferating. There are even chips that can be stuck or attached to whatever you want to locate (30-meter range), such as a bunch of keys. ( AirTag- Chipolo - Life360 - Smart Tag - Peeble Bee )
Many festivals, conventions and even companies locate their customers or employees using the RFID chip embedded in their badge, which gives them access to their site every time they pass through a gate or approach a control point ( Weezevent - Intellitix - MediaActive ). Schools can easily control attendance with such a system. Active phone location services are included in most recent phones.
But this is mainly of private interest. At the public level, the active location of regulated aircraft, trains, planes, boats and possibly drones and robots, is accessible in real time on the Internet. What's that plane passing overhead? What's holding up that train?
Locate :
Train
Planes
Boats
Satellites
By the end of this article, you may feel that you can be "positioned" by anyone. This is indeed the case if you're prepared to put in the effort and the resources.
Not so long ago, freedom of movement was restricted in many countries. If we don't want these aberrations to spread again, we'd be well advised to keep a tight rein on governments and companies tempted to put us on file and control our movements.
Suggested reading
Monitoring movements or identifying people? A contribution to the history of the passport in France from the First to the Third Republic - Gérard Noiriel
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/genes_1155-3219_1998_num_30_1_1497
Geoposition in education: what you need to know - Thot Cursus
http://cursus.edu/dossiers-articles/articles/24589
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
http://www.un.org/fr/documents/udhr/
Illustration: Macrovector - ShutterStock
You might also like:
Ecosystem of collaborative tools
If you're looking for a "collaboration tool" on the Internet, you're sure to be overwhelmed by the flood of proposals: several hundred, each with their own unbeatable features. The field of collaboration tools is booming. Typology, examples and references.
Our online photos reveal much more than we think. If an A.I. can describe the mood and pretext of a single photo, you can imagine what it can gather about our account from all our photos, compiled over the years. A university or company using A.I. can already draw a portrait of a candidate with great precision. Give it a try!
The educational uses of geopositioning are currently being explored. What does geolocation bring to training in practice?
My connected colleague: Diet Sensor makes life science class appetizing.
"My Connected Colleague" takes us on a tour of how the SVT class is coming to the rescue of students' food education with the Diet Sensor. Never have the canteen plates been emptied with so much excitement.
How to easily detect whether a text has been generated by artificial intelligence
The robust results obtained by the researchers illustrate the unique imprint of machine-generated texts through the alterations produced by the machines themselves.
